This birther thing started a long time ago. It’s really quite deranged. You should check out this late October 2008 piece from Pam Gellar’s place that attempts to prove that Barack Obama’s real father was Malcolm X. And if you don’t believe that literally, they ask you to at least admit it figuratively.
Its dishonesty is quite striking. They appear to think the average gestation time of a human being is eleven months and think the word ‘autumn’ is synonymous with the word ‘August,’ just to give two obvious examples of the sleight of hand they like to use.
The article helps explain, unintentionally, why these birther stories arose and why they won’t die. After all, it’s a very odd allegation these people are making. Ann Dunham began classes at the University of Hawaii in late September 1960. By early December, she was pregnant. She married Obama’s father on February 2nd, which is about when you would expect if it took her a couple of months to realize she was pregnant. Obama was born on August 4th, 1961. And Ms. Dunham took her new baby home to Washington state, where her parents lived, and enrolled in classes there that fall. Meanwhile, Obama’s father graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1962 and left for Harvard. The family was never reunited.
So, that’s a sad little story, particularly for the time in which it took place. But it had a pretty happy ending, no? That little boy grew up to be a U.S. Senator and president of the United States. What a country!!
Whatever you might say about the circumstances of Obama’s birth, there isn’t any room for him to have been conceived or born in Kenya. Contemporaneous newspapers have announcements of his birth. The state has issued two separate records of his birth certificate and vouched for their authenticity. There’s simply no reason to doubt the facts here.
But the point isn’t that Obama was really born in Kenya any more than the point is that Malcolm X is the president’s true father. It’s supposed to be figuratively true even if it isn’t literally true.
Now, Pam Gellar is a hateful bigoted idiot. But the same thing is true of Donald Trump. He’s saying the same types of things about the president. And, yet, this doesn’t prevent him from joining up with Mitt Romney to raise money for the Republican’s campaign.
Trump will join Romney and former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich for a campaign fund-raiser in Las Vegas on Tuesday evening. Romney’s campaign also is raffling a chance to have dinner with Trump for supporters who donate $3 to the campaign.
“I want you: Dine with the Donald,” a campaign flier proclaims, along with a drawing of Trump in the pose of Uncle Sam.
The campaign offers: “Airport transportation in the Trump vehicle; Stay at the Trump International Hotel & Tower New York; Tour the Celebrity Apprentice Boardroom; Dine with Donald Trump and Mitt Romney.”
Even the normally jaded campaign press corp is appalled.
Asked on his charter plane whether Trump’s questioning of President Barack Obama’s birthplace gave him pause, Romney simply said he was grateful for all his supporters.
“You know, I don’t agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in,” Romney said. “But I need to get 50.1% or more and I’m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”
He might as well have said “I don’t agree with all the racists who support me but I need to get 50.1% and I’m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.” Seriously.
Remember when Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona went to the Senate floor and falsely claimed that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is perform abortions? Do you remember what his office said when he was called on it?
“We did call [Kyl’s] office trying to ask what he was talking about there. And I just want to give it you verbatim here. It says, ‘his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.'”
The birther controversy isn’t intended to be factual either.
While Malcolm X may not be Obama’s biological father, Malcolm X is demonstrably Barack Hussein Obama’s philosophical father, and the lineage is undeniable! Obama Jr. was sired in the social soup stirred by Malcolm X. Now read the whole article and really WAKE UP.
I think it’s Mitt Romney who needs to WAKE UP.